FOOTBALL
Players in no rush to vote
NFL players decided on Wednesday not to rush into a vote on a tentative agreement aimed at ending a lockout that has dragged on for more than four months. The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) executive committee and player representatives of the league’s 32 teams gathered in Washington to consider the labor deal, but reached no decision, saying more work needed to be done. The players did take a conditional vote and left word with the NFLPA about hypothetical terms that they would agree to in order to recommend a possible settlement of a pending antitrust lawsuit against the league, the Web site said.
GOLF
Woods drops his caddie
Tiger Woods has decided to part company with longtime caddie Steve Williams, a move that took the New Zealander by surprise after he helped the former world No. 1 to win 13 majors. Williams, who had been a regular caddie for Woods since 1999, has recently been carrying the bag for Australia’s Adam Scott while Woods has been injured. “I want to express my deepest gratitude to Stevie for all his help, but I think it’s time for a change,” Woods said in a statement on his Web site. Williams, on his own Web site, said: “Needless to say this came as a shock.”
GOLF
Evian to become major
The Evian Masters in France will become the fifth major on the LPGA Tour from 2013, LPGA Tour commissioner Mike Whan said on Wednesday. “In 2013, you will return to the fifth and final major on the LPGA Tour,” Whan said on Wednesday. Tournament chairman Franck Riboud said the tournament would be moved to the second week of September from 2013. “It will be the last one of the year and we are very proud of that,” Riboud said, adding that the tournament would change its name and be called the Evian Championship when it becomes a major.
OLYMPICS
Biggest McDonald’s planned
It might not quite have been what Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when he coined the “faster, higher, stronger” motto of the modern Olympics, but the world’s largest fast-food chain is using the 2012 Games in London as a pretext to break its own records — it has announced plans to open the world’s biggest McDonald’s restaurant on the Games site in Stratford, London. Meters from where famous athletes will strain every sinew to win their medals, up to 1,500 people will be able to dine in the biggest McDonald’s yet built. The two-story, 3,000m2 diner will be one of four McDonald’s restaurants built in and near the Olympic Stadium in east London.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier